The Border Mail - Australia 30 August 2007
SEVERELY obese Australians should have access to cheap lap-band surgery to lengthen life and reduce the weight burden on the health system, obesity experts say.

Specialists are urging the Federal Government to make Medicare rebates available for the controversial stomach surgery, after international studies confirmed it could cut death rates.

Research from the US and Sweden released this week showed obese people who underwent the procedure had a mortality rate up to 40 per cent lower than their bandless counterparts.

Public health specialists say mounting evidence supports making lap-band surgery more widely and cheaply available for Australians with an extreme weight problem.

Women in the UK are more likely to have plastic surgery to please their partners, according to Dr Debra Gimlin, a sociology lecturer at Aberdeen University. She said American women were more likely to have the surgery for themselves.

She interviewed 20 American and 40 British women ranging from 23 to 52 years old.

She said: “All my respondents were concerned with their physical attractiveness, but only the British women said that they had undergone cosmetic surgery to suit the desires of a particular man.

“I found that British women who have cosmetic surgery have a greater tendency to blame others for their decision.”

Banbury Guardian 29 August 2007

A MOTHER who is sporting a whole new look after undergoing major plastic surgery will be baring all on national television.

Salena Newport, 40, of Adderbury is appearing on Channel 4 makeover programme 10 Years Younger on Thursday, August 30, where viewers will see the results of her extensive operations.

Mrs Newport – who used to weigh 231/2 stone and wore size 32 clothes – lost 121/2 stone in 2005 after paying £5,000 to have a gastric band fitted.

But the dramatic weight loss left her with baggy, excess skin.
As part of the popular TV show, which aims to make participants look ten years younger, Mrs Newport had loose skin cut from her arms and thighs, a complete lower body lift, breast uplift and implants, a nose job and new teeth.

23 August 2007

The average adult in the UK is drinking an extra day’s worth of calories every week through alcohol, according to a study by Standard Life.

The average adult is drinking enough lager, wine, cider and spirits to add almost 3,000 calories to their weekly calorific intake.

This is the equivalent to 500 calories above the average male recommended daily limit of 2,500 calories and 50% more than the advised maximum of 2,000 calories a day for a woman.

Annually UK adults are drinking around 155,000 calories through alcohol, adding to the country’s growing obesity problems. With 3,500 extra calories creating one pound of fat, adults are drinking enough alcohol each year to add 44lbs to their bodyweight, or just over three stone.

History
The Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy procedure (also called Vertical Gastrectomy, Sleeve Gastrectomy, Greater Curvature Gastrectomy, Parietal Gastrectomy, Gastric Reduction, Logitudinal Gastrectomy and even Vertical Gastroplasty) is performed by approximately 20 surgeons worldwide.  This forum is titled “VSG forum� to include the two most common terms for the procedure(vertical and sleeve).   The earliest forms of this procedure were conceived of by Dr. Jamieson in Australia(Long Vertical Gastroplasty, Obesity Surgery 1993)- and  by Dr. Johnston in England in 1996 (Magenstrasse and Mill operation- Obesity Surgery 2003).  Dr Gagner in New York, refined the operation to include gastrectomy(removal of stomach) and offered it to high risk patients in 2001.  Several surgeons worldwide have adopted the procedure and have offered it to low BMI and low risk patients as an alternative to laparoscopic banding of the stomach.

All businesses are used to dealing with absences due to illness. But the issue of how to handle attendance and performance issues caused by elective medical procedures is less clear cut.

With about 28,900 cosmetic procedures carried out in 2006, and one-in-seven couples with fertility problems, it’s an increasingly pertinent issue. Would you, for example, treat an employee undergoing chemotherapy in the same way as you would treat an employee undergoing a course of IVF? Similarly, is the employee recovering from their breast augmentation afforded the same rights as the employee recuperating from heart surgery?

Are employees who choose to have elective procedures entitled to sick pay?

Studies of stomach-surgery patients offer the strongest evidence yet that shedding pounds can extend life.
Obese people are significantly less likely to die if they undergo stomach surgery to lose weight, according to two new studies that offer the first convincing evidence that the health gains of losing weight translate into living longer.
The research, involving 20,000 obese people in the United States and Sweden, found that those who underwent surgery had a 30 percent to 40 percent lower risk of dying over the next seven to 10 years compared with those who went without the operations.
Previous research has shown that losing weight cuts the risk of diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and other major ailments and suggested that might lead to an increase in longevity. But the new studies offer the strongest evidence to date in answer to one of the most important and contentious questions about one of the western world’s biggest health problems: Does weight loss result in not only healthier lives but also longer ones?
“The question as to whether intentional weight loss improves life span has been answered,” wrote George Bray of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., in a commentary accompanying the reports in today’s New England Journal of Medicine.
“The answer appears to be a resounding yes.”

There are two Metabolic Hormones Controlling Appetite, Leptin and Grehlin

Leptin:
Discovered in 1994, signals the brain that the body has had enough to eat.
The earliest-discovered of these hormones, and the first hormone ever shown to have a direct role in appetite and weight control. The hormone is secreted in fatty tissue and released into the bloodstream.  However, as the amount of fatty tissue in the body increases, the body begins to “resist� the leptin.  Obese people often have extremely high levels of leptin circulating in the blood.  However, the brain “ignores� the leptin because  it has become desensitized to it.  For this reason, injecting leptin into obese people to “curb� their appetite has been shown to be ineffective.  Also, if obese people reduce fatty tissue by losing weight, it is not clear whether the brain ever recovers its normal sensitivity to leptin.

By CTK / Published 20 August 2007
Prague, Aug 18 (CTK) - Czech plastic surgeon Bohdan Pomahac from Olomouc, north Moravia, has become head of a U.S. team that will become the third one in the world to transplant faces, Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes today.

Another such workplace is only in France. It transplanted the face of a woman whom a dog bit out a cheek, the lips and the nose.

“The third clinic is in China but the doctors have not released any detailed data on the operations, so it is difficult to say how successful they are,” Pohamac, 36, told the paper.

By Jane Elliott
BBC News, health reporter
Lou Hunneybel hated her 38G breasts - they were too big and caused her daily agony.
Her shoulders and back ached from the excessive weight and she had an uncomfortable fungal rash underneath caused by excessive sweating.
Her GP told her she needed to lose at least a stone and a half (9.5kg) in weight before she would be considered for surgery.
She lost two stones (12.7 kg), but no weight went from her breasts leaving her a dress size 14 (European 40, US 12) on the bottom and size 22 (European 48, US 20) on the top.
Her GP then referred her for surgery, but without seeing her, the local primary care trust (PCT) immediately refused treatment.
“I was just so upset. My GP had referred me and said that I had problems, but they just sent me a letter saying that it was cosmetic surgery so I could not even have a consultation on the NHS.
“But it was not just cosmetic, I was in real discomfort. It was so uncomfortable.
“I had a huge thrush rash underneath them, which was very sore.
“My husband, Andrew, was so cross when they refused me that he took pictures of my breasts and the rash and posted them to the PCT.
“We knew I needed the operation and I needed them to see my problems.
“He blew the pictures up to A4 size and sent them in the post.”
Within weeks of sending the photos, 36-year-old Lou, from Essex, was given a consultation date and just months later she had her NHS surgery.
More: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6688353.stm